Maggie sat in the cabin of the crane, thinking about Bergmann. It seemed a lifetime since they had clambered up onto the robots and taken control of most of the upper levels. Level Four was deserted now, robots had tidied it up and it was a vast deserted cavern, barely lit and cold. She had come down here to think, away from the hungry and needful survivors of the war. Humans had destroyed almost all of the Androids, and the few robots who served them.

Bergman was right, she thought. She was no better than Aristo Ten, or the real Aristos. Pride had made her feel like someone special, pride and the doting, respectful followers who hung on her every word, worshipping. She had listened to all of them and believed herself almost immortal. All of them except Bergmann. He had once framed her face in his scarred hands and told her that she was special. Special, but not Godlike, special, strong, intelligent, but not unique, not invincible, not the colony’s greatest genius. Increasingly she had listened to her new courtiers, the new elite that was gradually shaking off the shackles of the deadly pills that had enslaved them for so long.

Young, beautiful, unscarred men had told her that they loved her, that she was the most beautiful creature in the land. Bergman had scoffed. She was beautiful, he’d said, but so were some of the other women who were gradually regaining their looks. She was special, he had said, but he saw no need to elaborate further. She had been angry, she had flaunted her power over the smiling young men, she had, gradually, began to taunt him, to try to put him in his place., at first privately, then in front of her subjects. He had grown silent; would not respond to her barbs, and she became ever more violent and shrill in her criticism.

Doc might have helped, but he worked day and night with the addicts, and had no time for her childish behavior. “Childish behavior,” she whispered to herself. Bergman had finally left to find George and the remains of his family in the wilderness outside the closed society that she was beginning to draw around herself. After he had gone, she arranged a round of parties and stayed drunk for a week. She had almost – almost, taken a thinkpill for the first time in years.